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The Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee has released a new draft of the leading U.S. legislative proposal for overseeing stablecoins, and it includes some of the positions of Democratic lawmakers.

The exchange says users should withdraw USD as soon as possible as the Securities and Exchange Commission engages in “extremely aggressive and intimidating tactics” against the company.

Binance said late Thursday that its banking partners will stop processing its dollar payments as early as next week.

The announcement comes days after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a lawsuit against the firm as well as crypto exchange giant Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The SEC is seeking a freeze on BinanceUS’ assets, though the SEC has asked to court to approve a temporary restraining order that would allow BinanceUS to continue to process withdrawal requests from customers.

The resulting regulatory pressure, BinanceUS said, has “created challenges for the banks with whom we work.”

The exchange said on Twitter:

“As a result, in an effort to protect our customers and platform, today we are suspending USD deposits and notifying customers that our banking partners are preparing to pause fiat (USD) withdrawal channels as early as June 13, 2023. We encourage customers to take appropriate action with their USD.”

In a notice to customers shared on Twitter, BinanceUS said that it “will start delisting USD pairs (e.g., BTC-USD) on our platform, while continuing to support stablecoin pairs (e.g., BTC-USDT).”

The exchange advised customers to withdraw USD via bank transfer “by June 13, 2023” and said, “Due to elevated volumes and weekend bank closures, ACH withdrawals may take longer than usual to process (e.g. up to several days; we appreciate your patience).”

BinanceUS called the moves “proactive steps as we–for a time–transition to a crypto-only exchange. To be clear, we maintain 1:1 reserves for all customer assets.”

BinanceUS announced earlier Thursday that it would remove ten different trading pairs in light of the SEC lawsuit.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Binance.US, the U.S. entity of crypto exchange Binance, said it will now only delist 10 trading pairs in the wake of a lawsuit brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week.

“Following community feedback, Binance.US will no longer remove any USDT Advanced Trading pairs,” the exchange said in an update to an announcement first made Wednesday. “All cryptocurrencies and USDT pairs remain available to trade. Only select BTC and BUSD Advanced Trading pairs below will be removed.”

Trading pairs to be removed include ATOM/BTC, BCH/BTC, DOT/BTC, LRC/BTC, MANA/BTC, UNI/BTC, VET/BTC, XTZ/BTC, HBAR/BUSD and ONE/BUSD.

Binance.US had originally said it planned to delist around a third of its total trading pairs. It’s pausing its OTC Trading Portal, an “over-the-counter” trading system that lets buyers and sellers trade without using a public order book.

“Your assets remain safe and secure with Binance.US, and deposits and withdrawals continue to function as normal,” the company said.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has one thing going for it in the aftermath of the meltdown that shuttered the multi-billion dollar trading firm: its clients. 

Kevin Cofsky, partner at investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners — which is tasked with exploring restructuring and capital market opportunities for FTX Group — outlined the value of the customer list for potential buyers, as per court documents released Thursday. And that value is the reason it should remain private. 

“The estate has approximately 9 million customers and as we evaluate the potential for the treatment of that exchange going forward we believe that the existing customer base is extraordinarily valuable and our understanding is based on our research and having looked at the cost incurred by other crypto companies, specifically to solicit customers,” said Cofsky.

The customer list is currently sealed but those citing bankruptcy precedence and a group of media outlets argue that it should be released.

FTX customer list valuable to potential buyers

Cofsky said the bank has reached out to a number of third parties about the idea of acquiring, investing into or reorganizing the FTX exchange. He argued that, based on these conversations, the list would be valuable to prospective buyers or investors.

He added that if the customer list was released then it would damage the value that could be recovered for creditors. “I believe that information is valuable, as I said and I think that releasing that information would impair the debtor’s ability to maximize the value that it currently possesses.”

Cofsky added that the existing customers are also valuable. If the exchange is reorganized and creditors end up owning a portion of it, he said, then they would be inclined to trade on the exchange — since their fees would go toward the business that they partially own.

He noted that if the exchange is reorganized, it would be done in a regulatory compliant way, with secure custody and a first-class trading platform.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Rodrigo Seira, special counsel at the crypto venture firm Paradigm, and the firm’s Policy Director Justin Slaughter commented today on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s redefinition of an exchange — claiming it needs to start from scratch.

“The only way for the Commission to arrive at a valid regulatory approach to DeFi is to withdraw its proposed amendments and start again at square one: with a notice of proposed rulemaking that clearly describes its proposed regulatory approach, after genuine engagement with the DeFi industry, a clear-headed assessment of the statutory limits on its authority in this area, and a fulsome analysis of the costs and benefits of the alternative approaches that Congress has actually authorized it to pursue,” Seira and Slaughter wrote in the statement. 

“To do anything less is to allow a mortally wounded rulemaking process to stagger forward to the detriment of the Commission, the crypto industry, and the investors the Commission is tasked with protecting,” they added.

A key problem with the exchange’s proposed definition is that is lumps centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges under one umbrella, resulting in vague and ambigious terms needed to describe both, Paradigm argued.

On June 6, the SEC sued Coinbase and alleged the firm violated securities regulation by acting as a broker, national securities exchange and clearing house without proper disclosure. Since Coinbase’s structure follows a similar structure as Kraken and other crypto exchange giants, the SEC’s ruling could potentially have major consequences for the crypto industry. 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Moody’s said Thursday that it had changed its outlook on Coinbase to negative from stable after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the crypto exchange earlier this week.

“The change in outlook to negative from stable reflects the uncertain magnitude of impact the SEC’s charges will have on Coinbase’s business model and cash flows,” the ratings agency said. The company’s B2 corporate family rating and B1 guaranteed senior unsecured notes’ ratings were affirmed. 

Coinbase faces possible implications from regulatory actions that include “disgorgement of ill-gotten gains,
interest and penalties and adverse consequences to certain of its product offering and business activities, including its taking rewards business,” Moody’s added, noting that the timing and financial consequences pertaining to the resolution of the matters is uncertain. 

Coinbase has ‘strong’ liquidity position

Moody’s said that 20% of Coinbase revenue for the trailing-twelve months ending in March was driven by bitcoin trading, while 13% came from ethereum trading and 28% from other crypto asset trading. The ratings agency said the company had been benefiting from a higher interest rate environment and noted its “strong” liquidity position with $5 billion in cash and equivalents. 

“Moody’s expects Coinbase to maintain focus on expense management that has served to mitigate the adverse impact of the decline in transaction revenue it has suffered following the spike in activity that occurred after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic,” the ratings agency said.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The recently-resurrected NFT analysis platform has a new Chrome browser extension that provides real-time data on Twitter PFPs.